


Core

by sammys_lover



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Alliances, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Post-Game(s), Psychological Horror, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Strong Language, Wheatley Redemption Arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24329293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammys_lover/pseuds/sammys_lover
Summary: You moved out to a small town with superstitious people and creepy old legends.You think it's all crap -- until something falls from the sky that will change your life forever.
Relationships: Core!Wheatley/Reader, Wheatley (Portal)/Reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 117





	1. This Was a Triumph

You’re glad you decided to come out here tonight. This field has been a great place to stargaze. 

The crickets in the wheat that swayed gently in the breeze only added to how relaxing it really is out there. 

You never tell anyone where you go in the night – the whole town’s been superstitious about this place for... jeez, generations. 

You gaze at the deep blue and black twinkling sky, sitting in the bed of the old pickup truck that had been there forever. 

People in town have always said that horrible experiments were conducted here. Homeless people disappeared in the 50s and 60s, and people speculated a “mad scientist” was kidnapping them and... eh, the story differs from person to person. Sometimes the doctor was that of Frankenstein, creating reanimated beasts. Other say he tore them apart limb from limb and turned them into robots. In some versions of the stories, the scientist’s victims became werewolves, vampires, shadow demons, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah.

You laugh a little at the very thought. You thought it was all bullshit, obviously. 

You look at the moon, which was big and bright. 

Werewolves, vampires, mad scientists... 

You laugh again, your eyes on the sky, paying little mind to the fact that the crickets had gone silent. 

You spot a shooting star, and tilt your head in confusion. There weren’t any meteor showers tonight. It seems to shimmer for a long time, and you keep your eyes on it. 

Isn't it a thing to make wishes on stars?

You wish you knew why this town was so weird. 

You scoff, laughing a little when you think that. You don’t believe in wishes either. 

You shut your eyes for a moment, feeling the slight breeze of the unseasonably warm weather a welcome sensation on your skin. 

Wait, it that screaming? 

Your eyes open, and you instinctively get low. You know everybody says not to fuck with wheat fields and corn fields, but you thought it was all ridiculous! There’s no monsters or mad scientists in the woods! There’s no haunted mine or shed with a portal to hell! 

But that screaming IS getting louder. 

It sounds like a man’s voice – and it’s getting closer the longer it goes on. 

You relax and roll your eyes once it hits you – it's probably another ghost-hunting wannabe. Last time you were out here this kid with a bunch of gadgets and a big head, insisting that he was hunting down a classmate out there... who was conveniently supposedly an alien. You had to end up calling the kid’s dad and sending him home. Better take care of this poor sap too. Once they come sprinting out of the woods, that is. 

But they.... don’t come out of the woods. That screaming is coming from a far, far distance. It’s coming from the SKY. 

Your head shoots up, and you spot that weird shooting star, which is now a flaming ball, hurtling towards Earth. 

Alarm shoots through you, and you duck down, bracing yourself for impact, which comes with a sickening crack and thud that hurts your ears. A shockwave shakes the truck, and you nearly fly out, your hair a mess and flying in your face. 

You sit up in the truck, shock flowing through you, quickly pushed down when you took in the fact that a SCREAMING THING FROM THE SKY fell into the field not too far away. 

You scramble from the truck and stand in the wheat, sprinting towards the area that was now a crater, trying to find the thing that fell, which wasn’t hard, since there were tiny flames struggling to survive on the dirt. 

The flames were a bit more lively when you got closer to the crash site, the dirt highly disturbed, grass and wheat charred, and a deep hole seems to have become the mystery object’s tomb. 

Minding the flames, you peer into the hole, getting soil on your palms as you lean slightly forward, on your knees, holding back the urge to call “hello?” down the hole. 

Before you can shine a light down the crater, there’s a tremor in the Earth below you, making you freeze in fear. 

It doesn’t take you long to realize that you should run, and you DO because you’re not an idiot, but a metallic screech and a sickening crack seem to open a hole in the earth below you, spanning way too far for you to escape. 

Leap for the edge when you feel the ground give out, and your fingertips can only brush the edge of the hole before you plummet, screaming as you do, the Earth swallowing you, the object, the debris, and the fire, until there was not even the trace of an echo of your voice left to be heard on the surface. 

The crickets resume chirping.


	2. I'm Making a Note Here

Ooooooooh, your head. Your neck. Your whole body...

Fuck, what happened? 

Your eyes peel open and you look up at what you expect to be a ceiling – but instead you see a hole. A huge, gaping hole that goes up too high for the sunlight to reach you – but water does. 

It must be raining. Drizzling. And the rain on your face must have woken you. 

You struggle to sit up, but you do with a chill – your clothes are soaked. You look down. 

You’re... laying on blue paint, which is weird. 

You have no idea how you survived that fall. 

How long have you been out? 

You shake your head as though it would clear it, looking around the darkish space. 

You’re surrounded by... broken glass, dirt, some wheat from the surface, a... radio? And some other junk. 

You’re in some weird underground room, illuminated by some white light that makes it look sort of like an office. But it’s not. 

The light occasionally flickers. 

You stand on shaky legs, falling backwards onto the blue paint, bracing for the cold impact of the floor, only to... bounce? 

You bounce a couple times before resting comfortably on the floor, eyes wide. 

Well. 

You laugh out loud, despite yourself. 

“I died! I’m dead right now! This is hell!” You speak out loud as you stand on shaky legs again, staying up this time. You didn’t believe in heaven or hell either, but here you are! Damned for eternity! Just your luck! 

“If this really is hell, it’s a lot less lively than I expected...” Your murmur doesn’t echo. 

“wh-” an electronic spark fizzles on the over end of the room, coming from under some rubble. “Wh-wh-wh-whow-wh-hhhh-who's there?” 

The voice stalls at multiple points, like it was coming from a computer. It’s a man with a British accent, and you’re pretty sure it was the same screaming voice from the surface. 

You walk over to the source of the voice, digging through the rubble, tossing rocks, bits of metal, concrete, and dirt out of the way as you do. 

“P-p-plug- p-p-p-plug- p-p-p-p-plug.......” 

The voice dies out after a second, and luckily, you can find that object before it does. 

You find a... 

Hmm. 

You’re not sure what it is. It’s some kind of tech, obviously. 

It’s a... metal orb with an opening on its top, left, right, and back, and two metal panels that were shut on the front. There were also two little... what the heck would you call those? Holdy... thingies on the thing’s upper and lower front. You use them to carry the orb. 

It’s about as long as your torso is, and isn’t as heavy as you thought it would be. 

This thing could speak, so maybe it could help you out here, somehow. Maybe it could fly??? Could you use it to call for help??? 

No harm in trying. It came from space – or at least some kinda plane or something, for pete’s sake. You might be in Hell. Anything's possible at this point.

You look around the room some more. 

The walls are dirty, with vines growing from tall, broken, decrepit ceilings, flickering, sparking lights and broken glass scattered about the place. 

There are pipes on the ground, as well as old papers, metal scraps, and... ugh, you don’t know. It’s a wreck. 

It looks like...a lab. There are some computers on a desk to your left, so you take the orb thing over there, hoping some of the power that was in the lights could be channeled into this thingy. 

It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a dial-up phone- is that what they’re called? A dial-up phone? Anyway, you pick it up, holding it to your ear as you place the orb on the desk, the reality of the situation starts to sink in. You’re in a hole. A deep, dark hole that had opened in the middle of nowhere after some weird orb fall from space. 

Oh, god. 

The phone doesn’t make any noise at all – surprise, surprise, and nothing happens when you spin those little buttons. There’s no calling help. Not with this. 

You set the phone down, breathing faster and faster, trying not to absolutely freak out, failing a little bit, panic flowing through you. 

When you realize that there’s an array of buttons before you, you debate pressing things at random, pushing the urge away when you note all the labels that were too faded to be read. You don’t know where you are, you don’t know what those buttons do, and you could either cut the power or blow yourself up. 

You take a breath. 

Okay, okay, okay. 

You look on the desk, large monitors dark in front of you. 

There’s an old, probably broken keyboard plugged in, and you press the space bar a couple times, feeling around the edge of it, and then the computer in front of it, for some kind of power button. You’re not sure what you do, but the screen before you flicks on, a distorted tone chiming, the words “Aperture Science” flickering on before coming to... a main screen. 

Okay. Progress. 

You find a mouse, which is... sticky for some reason, clicking on a few files that are too complicated for you to read, until you must press some important key, because a back wall panel pops open, an odd sort of rounded plug to the right of it, accompanied by numerous switches, knobs, and buttons. You take a look at the panel and the orb, spotting the same symbol on the orb as the one that had popped up on the computer screen. 

“Aperture Science...” You tilt your head, wondering what the odds are that this little piece of tech actually belongs here. It’s... insane, probably. 

You lift the metal orb thingy up, trying to plug it in like you would your phone charger under your bed in the dark – until it clicks in and the panel holds it, a little red light fading in and out to the lower left of the panel. 

Okay....You’re just... gonna assume that’s working. 

You decide to look around a little more. 

It hits you suddenly that you’re shivering, an odd chill spreading through the room – probably from that hole. Your clothes are dripping wet, and you, cold and confused, peel your T-shirt off, wringing it out, watching the water splash on the floor for a moment before you look over to your left – you're standing towards a blank wall, the computers behind you. 

There is what looks to be some sort of... metal frame. Frames, plural. There’s broken glass along it, some large shards still attached. Beyond the glass there is a dingy, dirty bed, and a toppled table in the corner, presumably where the radio had fallen from. 

You carefully step across the broken glass, exploring what must have been a chamber for someone to live or sleep in. You note that there is no space under the bed – instead only panels – and a single drawer. 

You squat, giving the drawer a slight tug, and it opens with ease. There seems to be some extra clothes – vacuum sealed in a plastic bag. 

You open the bag and quickly change, wringing out your wet clothes as you go. By the time you’re done, you’re dressed in some grey underwear, a blue sports bra, a white tank top donning the words “Aperture Science” across the chest, and an orange jumpsuit. But, uuck, you... feel too much like a prisoner with the jumpsuit on, so you undo it a tad, tying the sleeves around your waist. 

Then comes the... odd shoes. They come up your calves, grey and white, with... some sort of black springy thing running from the calf to the heel. The boots somehow make you feel a little more balanced. 

You hop from the area, finding that these boots make jumping a little easier, too. You take a hair tie that had been on your wrist, pulling your hair back and behind you, looking around for somewhere to dry your wet clothes. 

You decide to lay them out on a nearby fallen beam, continuing to look around the room, spotting a camera still hanging high up on the wall, which was non-operational. 

You’re examining it when you hear a few rapid beeps coming from behind you, and you turn to see something finishing up on the computer. 

The sound makes you jump, you won’t lie, and you whip around, hiding in the shadows of some vines that were hanging from the cracks in the ceiling as the same chime from earlier plays from the computer before it goes back to the main screen again, and the metal orb... groans? 

Yeah, it groans, and the two metal plates on its front open like the bleary blinking of an eye, squinting before blinking a few times. 

“Oh man, what...? How did I get back here?” 

You sit quietly, stepping forward a little to get a better look at the... thing, but it must spot you. 

“Oh! Hello there, is-” it pauses for a beat. “Is that you... Chell?” The orb half chuckles, half sobs, sounding... relieved. “Listen, I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry for everything I did- everything I said- ugh, I cannot believe I let myself act like such a monster!” 

You listen to the robot, confused. You decide to step into the light, walking cautiously forward. 

“And I know- I know there’s a lot I've gotta do to make up for it all, and believe me, I will! And I’ll never put you thr-” He stops suddenly when you get close enough, and when you get up close, you note a few things about it. 

It has a complicated looking eye, which glows blue and has a crack in it. It’s also very dinged up and damaged – from the impact. It had to be. You’re amazed that this thing still works. Its vision must be less that optimal, which must be because its... eye? Its optic? Is damaged. It must realize you’re not a “Chell,” whatever that is. 

“Y-” It stutters, eye wide as you observe him, still silent. “You’re not Chell.” 

You shake your head. 

“No, I’m not.” Your reply seems to surprise it. “My name is Y/n.” 

“You can talk!” 

“So can you.” 

It seems to be thinking hard about something. 

“Okay, okay, wait.” Despite not having a mouth or body, the bot is pretty expressive. It’s amusing to watch. “How did I get back here, exactly? And why are you here? And- and where is Chell? Is she alive?” Its fearful tone rips sympathy from you, and you, with a soft tone, try to give him answers. 

You do your best to explain to him that you saw him fall from the sky, and when you went to retrieve him, the ground had given out beneath you both. 

“And... now we’re down here. I dug you out from under some rubble, and I plugged you in, and uh... h-here we are. As far as Chell goes, I don’t know anyone by that name. I’m sorry.” You stop for a moment. “Are you okay, by the way? Are you in pain? Can you- can you feel pain?” 

The orb seems to look at you with a wide, slightly amazed eye. 

“Uh- uh, yes, I’m quite alright, little banged up, but I’m alright.” It clears its throat. Or, makes the noise, anyway. “So uh, thank you for saving me there.” 

“Yeah, of course. What’s your name? And do you know where we are, exactly?” 

You’re keeping a gentle tone – this little orb thing seems to belong here. It might know a way out. 

“Oh! Right, right, uh, my name is Wheatley! And we are here in Aperture Laboratories. How’dya not know that? Oh,n- do you have brain damage? Can you say ‘apple’?” 

Its question is genuine, and seems to have tones of legitimate concern. 

“...Apple?” 

It seems to breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay, thank goodness.” 

You decide that you should probably go and push for him to help you out of this place. 

“Hey, listen, Wheatley?” 

“Yes?” 

“Uh, I don’t belong down here, so can you do me a solid and kinda... give me some directions out of heeeere or maybe call for some heeeelp, oooooorrrrr...? Something? Please? I’ve gotta get home.” 

It seems to nod, and get a little... excited? 

“Oh! Yup, I- haha, I’m your man! For directions! But uh, let me run something by you for a sec here, how about if I help you find a way out, you help me find Chell? It- it's very, very important that I find her? If she’ll even- oh, well, I’m gettin' ahead’a myself here, but uh, wh-whaddya think? You help me, I’ll help you? Eh?” 

He seems awfully hell-bent on finding this Chell person. But hey, no time to dwell on a Chell. You’ve gotta get home. 

“Okay, yeah, I'll help you out. Sure. How are we supposed to find her, what does she look like, and... where do we go to get out of here?” 

“Ah! Right! Excellent, I promise you’re not gonna regret this. First things first: we’ve gotta move, like you said, so if you could just pick me up, that’d be wonderful!” 

He looks to you with a bright eye, and you look at him with confusion. 

“Uuuh, alrighty then,” You grab his sides and pull him as gently as you could from the wall. He’s the perfect size for you to tuck him under your arm and tote him on your hip. “I’m assuming we should head out the door here?” 

He seems to nod – you can feel the motion. 

Alright, then. 

Off you go.


	3. Huge Success

You’ve been walking through dirt and broken glass for quite a while – and man, whatever this place was before was now a wreck. 

You’ve been walking through the halls now for what must have been about an hour – and gotten next to nowhere. This place looks like it was abandoned several lifetimes ago – possibly longer. 

Thankfully there were still a little bit of proper supplies laying around and you were able to find an old backpack – a little tattered and brown, with a book and some other junk in it. The book you’d kept, the rest you discarded, and you’re stored your slightly damp clothes inside. 

Meanwhile, the, what you now knew to be a core, had been happily chatting away at your hip, talking about random things as you’d pass them. 

And he’d even spoken a little of this “Chell” person. Apparently, she had been his friend, and the two were separated quite some time ago. He wouldn’t go into specifics about what he was apologizing for. But he did go into what she looked like a little bit. 

She has olive skin, grey eyes, dark hair, and stands at about 5’5”. According to him she’s brain-damaged, and doesn’t speak. 

But back to what he was explaining now. 

“-and that is why that whole storage of the humans thing was completely not my fault. At all. Chell was perfectly fine, you’re perfectly fine, and we’re all gonna be just dandy when we get out of here and find her!” 

You come to a rounded door, looking at it with suspicion before it twists suddenly and pops open, revealing a huge set of run-down rooms on the other side. You jump slightly when the door opens, but you cautiously make your way forward nonetheless. 

“Hey, Wheatley? Could you tell me a little more about this place?” 

He gets quiet as you step into the room, the circular door swiftly closing behind you, not budging when you rush back to it, attempting to pry it open to no avail. 

“Well... It was a long, long time ago, and this place was dedicated to science! And while I myself didn’t exactly have a hand in the original experiments and tests, I did... later...” He trails off, suddenly seeming a bit ashamed, quickly continuing on. “Anyway, Aperture labs tested out their little gadgets and gizmos on the little humans they rounded up and put into my care.” 

You look around the room. It was... weird. There was a big red button on the floor, shining blue dots connecting the button to the door, where a black X surrounded by blue was shining. In the corner of the room, covered in vines, is a cube. You let his information sink in – they rounded up people? 

“...So the stories are true, then?” You look down at the core as you take a few more steps into the room. 

“What stories?” 

“Oh, uh, where I'm from – there's a town up there, on the surface. People talk about some horrible experiments that happened to missing people who were brought to a lab by a mad scientist. I thought it was all bullshit...” You look to the button, and then the cube. “I’m assuming that button opens the door...? Is this one of their tests?” 

“You’ve got the right idea! I can’t help you out, though, I’ll get a nasty shock if I do...” He stares far off, as though he were recalling something. Jeez, who traumatized this metal meatball? 

You set him gently on the floor before walking over to the corner and picking up the cube, carrying it swiftly to the button. 

“So there’s a town up on the surface, then?” 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t there be?” 

He gets... quiet. 

“Well, it’s been quite a while since the human who made me have been around, but uh, I was told that all life up top had been destroyed, and if I tried to leave the facility, I would die.” Jesus, that’s harsh. “figured out it wasn’t true after I received a- you're never gonna believe this – a radio transmission! From the surface! So naturally, I thought, well, I’ve gotta get my humans out of here – I'm responsible for them, I’ve gotta get them out of this crumbling place! That’s when I found C-...Chell...” He trails off about there, and you feel a pang of sympathy for him. You may not know what happened between him and his human companion, but you can plainly see that he feels bad about it. Very bad. 

“Anyway,” He continues quietly, “I’ve never seen the surface for myself, not up close, anway, but I'd like to. And I'd like to hope that’s where Chell is now.” 

You remain quiet as you watch the dots on the floor turn orange, the X to a check mark, and the round doors fly open with ease. You go back to pick Wheatley up, then continue on your way. 

“How long have you been here, in this place? And how did you end up in the sky?” 

You walk through the doors only to find that the next hall was interrupted by a huge, gaping hole in the floor that lead to a darkened room below. You swallow harshly. 

“Me? Oh, I've been here for... well, I've been around for... thousands...? Yeah, yeah, thousands of years.” 

You peer over the edge of the hole, looking for a safe way down. It looks too far to jump. 

“And the sky?” 

He clams up, dancing awkwardly around the subject. 

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhh, well, that’s a bit of a complicated story, whiiich I'll have to tell you later because it’s so long! Yeah, yes, that’s it, it’s too long.” 

You look at him with suspicion. 

“Okay, then. Uh, this might be a dumb question, but do you have a uh...flashlight? And are we supposed to jump down this hole? I don’t see any other ways across.” 

“Oh! Right, I'm sorry! Here-” 

He looks as though he’s concentrating for a second before his optic glows and shines a beam of light down into the hole. Jeez, that’s a long fall. 

Before you can comment again, the floor beneath you gives way with a sickening crack, and you fall straight down, screaming, clinging tightly to your little companion core. 

You land... completely fine? You look down, and the springs of the boots were barely even shaken by that fall... 

You quickly put two and two together. These are some weird high-tech boots that let you fall without injury... you don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t landed on your feet. 

You shudder. 

Meanwhile, Wheatley’s still screaming, his eye screwed shut. 

You give him a comforting pat and a shout of “We’re alright!” That seems to silence him. 

“Oh,” He breathes, his... artificial heart, if he has one, probably pounding. “Oh, so we are.” 

The two of you share a light laugh that was born of fear, looking around the dark room with the little light that Wheatley provided. 

You take a step forward on the rubble, and it shifts under your weight. 

“...What happened here?” Why is this place all... abandoned and crumbling now?” 

You continue through the dark hallway, treading carefully over the crumbling remains of the roof on the floor. 

“Well, technically speaking, it’s not completely abandoned. Only by humans. If there’s power, then she still runs the place.” His emphasis on “she” filled you with dread for reasons you didn’t know. 

“...She?” 

Before he can answer, you step on something – a piece of a wall, that makes a loud PEW sound, making both you and Wheatley jump. You whip your head around to see what happened, only to find a new, oval hole in the wall to your left, surrounded in a blue glow. 

Your eyes widen in both shock and amazement. 

“Oh!” Wheatley’s excited exclamation tells you that that hole in the wall is nothing to fear, and you step off the pile of rubble to get a closer look. 

The room on the other side looks well-lit and almost cozy. It’s a mix of dull orange light on white tile, some blankets, and... paintings on the wall? 

“Wait, wait, wait! Before you go in there – look under that rubbish you just stepped on- yup, over there!” 

You go back to the rubble, letting Wheatley on the ground to lift it, finding a... white... gun looking thing? 

You shoot him a confused look, examining the thing. 

“What is this thing...? And did it burn a hole in the wall?” 

Wheatley wiggles under your arm, and you assume that had ben his attempt at shaking his head “no,” before he continued. 

“That there is a portal gun! Aaand oh, lookit that, it’s intact. Huh. Weird. Musta been a prototype ‘a sorts.” 

You examine it, and quickly deduce that you can strap the thing to your arm, where you could slide it up to come to rest on your forearm, allowing you to still use your hand. 

A portal gun? 

“This thing makes portals? Are they, y’know, safe?” 

His eye is lidded as he mulls it over. 

“Mmmmmm, yes. Yeah. I’m gonna go with yes.” 

You... didn’t like the sound of that, but hey, if it gets you out of this dark room...? 

You hold onto Wheatley, stepping through the portal and into the room. 

It’s not exactly warm in the room, despite the cozy feeling about it. Well, as Cozy as a makeshift home in an abandoned lab could get. You decide that you need a rest – it had already been late when you left your home, and you’d been walking along this place’s maze of hallways for hours... 

You settle into the cozy little hole in the wall, which was spacious enough. 

Whoever had lived here before you –it was clear that they must have been alone for a very, very long time. They had paintings of quite a few things – cubes, white ovals with red dots marked “Hello?” and “are you still there?” and a woman in an orange jumpsuit exactly like yours. 

You set Wheatley down carefully on one of the nearby blankets that laid in a pile, and he takes a look at the wall. 

“That’s her.” Wheatley pipes up as you arrange the cleanest blankets into a sort of nest. “That’s Chell.” 

You look at the mural on the wall. 

She’s gorgeous, and whoever painted this clearly saw her in a very flattering light. 

You idly wonder what came of her. If the stories of people being kidnapped and tortured were true, then it wouldn’t be completely out of the realm of possibility that Chell had befallen a similar fate. 

“...I hope we find her, Wheatley.” 

“Yeah,” He muses with a sigh, “So do I.” 

He shakes his head the best he can, addressing you. 

“Well then, might as well get some sleep, eh? We’ve got quite a bit of exploring to do tomorrow –” 

“Wait, hold on.” You interrupt him – you didn’t mean to be rude at all, but there were some things you needed cleared up. 

“Just a second ago you were like,” You do your best imitation of his voice. “She runs the place now, ooo, spooky,” You break character, hugging your knees as you get comfortable. “So I wanna know who ‘she’ is.” 

You can see his nerves as he sheepishly looks away from you, struggling to begin. 

“...Weeeeell, ‘she’ is...” the rest of his sentence falls into a ramble. “A huge, lumbering AI with a want for nothing but science – Her name is Glados, and oh- oh, man was she angry with me before I-” He stops for a moment. “Left.” 

You weren’t liking the sound of this Glados... thing. You were imagining a huge, almost animatronic-like thing – the endoskeleton, roaming the halls of the abandoned labs looking for people to- 

You feel panic begin to wash over you, struggling to take a deep breath. You might be in a hole with a talking space core, yes. And the stories the townsfolk told turned out to be at least somewhat true, yes... but did that really mean that a huge, potentially murderous animatronic monster would be after you as you struggled to get home? 

Mmmmm... 

Wheatley must note the look of terror on your face, because he attempts to backtrack. 

“Oh! Oh, I mean- don't worry, we’ll be fine – yeah, totally fine- aahhh, as long as she doesn’t see you... or me... or know we were ever here in the first place.” 

You did not like the sound of any of this. 

“How long until we get out of here?” 

He looks thoughtful for a moment. 

“Well, all we’ve gotta do is find the set of stairs that lead to the main chamber, past...uh, her, ‘round a few corners, and then out the fire doors. Or at least to the main lift that will take you right to the surface, if my memory serves me. Should only take a few days... depends on how fast we go, whether or not we’re shot-” 

“SHOT?!” 

“NOT SHOT! I mean not shot! Don’t- look, let’s just get you some rest, and then we can uh, keep going. We’d been heading down through the halls, and since we fell into that room, it should only take us a few hours to reach familiar territory, and then we’re outta here... alright?” 

Well, you weren’t sleeping any time soon, but you could at least try. 

You nod, not saying anything, setting a blanket over Wheatley before settling down yourself, shutting your eyes, and doing your best to sleep. 

*** 

You wake after what feels like hardly any sleep at all, and find Wheatley still awake, looking at the portrait of Chell. 

You’re shivering – these old blankets only do so much against the cold that was seeping its way to your bones. 

Wheatley most notice that you’re having trouble getting rest, because he immediately turns his attention towards you. 

“You alright there?” 

You nod, trying to fight the chattering of your teeth. 

“Yeah, I'm g-good, I'm just kinda c-c-c-c-cold. N-no big deal.” 

Wheatley looks confused for a moment, shaking his head before shutting his optic. “Nope, can’t have that – can't have you getting hypnothermia.” 

“H-Hypothermia,” You correct, hugging yourself as you took in just how covered in goosebumps you were. 

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” 

He opens his eye, and after a minute, you could feel heat radiating off of him. 

Your shaking increases, and you put your hand a big closer to him. 

“Go on then, warm up. I’ll getcha up in a few hours.” 

You squirm only a little smidge closer, your hand gripping that little handle beneath his optic, which was also warm, letting your cold skin leach the heat from him. 

You still have trouble falling back asleep, but your overactive mind thankfully let you crash eventually, and your shivering ceased. 

You slept in that pile of old blankets, kept warm by your new companion, thousands upon thousands of miles under the ground. 

You don’t dream.


	4. It's Hard to Overstate My Satisfaction

You awake after an undetermined number of hours to Wheatley quietly calling your name. You had curled around his form, the blankets that separated you both pleasantly warm, like they had just come out of the dryer. 

“Y/n? C’mon, we’ve gotta move.” He sounds slightly panicked, and it shakes you to your very core. He seemed to be a practically indestructible ball of metal. If something scared HIM... 

You scramble up, your voice hushed and rough from dryness as you gathered your backpack, picking Wheatley up, too. He’d already begun to cool back down to his normal temperature. 

“What? What's wrong?” 

“I thought I heard something. It sounded like a... a gurgling. A growl.” 

Oh, hell no. No, no, no. 

You look around the room, taking the cleanest blanket and stuffing it in your pack. Were the rumors about the monsters that this mysterious mad scientist, who you assumed was Glados, created true? 

You’re not about to stick around and take any chances. 

You spot a hole in the floor that you hadn’t spotted before, moving cautiously over to it and peering down. It looked... semi-lit. Dingy. With fanblades swinging slowly every few feet in the walls. Lights glow from behind them. 

You can’t see the bottom of the hole... if there was a monster down this pit, it surely must have been there for... oh god, years. Decades. You wonder how it’s still alive – and before you can ask Wheatley if that’s where you were supposed to go, you hear it again – the growl. The gurgling- wait, isn't that just-

Since you were both already on edge, (Both literally and figuratively,) Wheatley’s sudden scream scares you so badly you actually jump, throwing yourself off-balance, and the two of you scream as you plummet down the hole. 

The air blows harshly in your eyes, and tears sting them as you struggle to hold onto Wheatley and straighten yourself out – these boots better protect your legs or you’re gonna fucking haunt this place for the rest of time. 

“Wheatley-!” You scream, holding him with a death grip in front of you, glaring against the whipping air. If he had a neck, you'd throttle him. “THAT GROWLING WAS JUST MY STOMACH!” 

You don’t have any time to gauge his reaction, and you didn't have any time to tell him off -- all you have time to do is brace yourself as the both of you enter a huge room – though it was more like a cavern, with huge metal structures with beams sticking out in random directions. 

You realize that there’s water beneath you both as you fall, and you close your eyes and hold Wheatley tight, mentally preparing yourself for the chill of the possibly of the water being miles deep, or toxic – or even worse, filled with horrible creatures abandoned long ago. 

You’re suddenly jerked back, the wind knocked out of you, nearly dropping Wheatley in the process of your jumpsuit getting snagged on some rusty metal – when you’d tied your sleeves around your waist, you guess you’d created a loop that could be caught onto things. 

You and Wheatley scream for a few more seconds, your breaths heavy as you look around with wide eyes. It was pitch black, the only light filtering in from above you, long vines and roots cascading from the cavern’s roof, laying in the undisturbed water below you. 

“Alright, new plan!” There’s fear in Wheatley’s voice as he looks up at you – you're holding onto him by his metal grips, trying not to look down. “And that plan involves holding onto me VERY tightly!” 

You hear the creak of the metal behind you and realize quickly that this beam isn’t gonna hold forever. You need to think of something fast- 

Okay, there’s a big fallen wall in the waters below, as well as some other, undisturbed debris. You look back up through the hole, the grimy white walls you’d fallen past possibly housing some hallway or tunnel out of here... 

Fuck, you don’t know – but anything’s better than the water down there. 

You let go of Wheatley with one hand, listening to his non-stop screaming, begging you not to drop him as you lift your arm that you still had the portal gun attached to. 

You aim your portal gun up and above your head – it's not too complicated to use – you pull one trigger with your pointer, and one with your middle finger. Each must open a different portal, right? 

You shoot up into the long hole above you, pulling each of the triggers as a test – and yes, there were two different colored portals. But you don’t have a lot of time for testing – because a little bit of the metal creaks and then snaps with a sickening echo, and you and Wheatley are falling once again, some vines and whatever they seemed to be growing plummeting with you. 

You aim below you – directly below you, pulling the trigger and- 

THWACK. 

You had both gotten through the poral, and the momentum seemed to have carried through, because the both of you were harshly thrust against the wall opposite to the portal you had come through – and you slid down and landed with a thud on some metal grates. 

You shakily sit up, looking around to find yourself before what was probably the cleanest hallway you’d seen so far. It looks old -- incredibly old -- probably from the 1950s or something.

Wheatley was just staring at the ceiling, panting. You wonder why he does that – does he need oxygen? Does he even have lungs? 

“You good?” 

Your question seems to jar him – and he shakes himself from his startled state as you stand on shaky legs, picking him up, not knowing how you were still alive. 

“Yeah, fine and dandy.” He sounds breathless, and if this were under lighter circumstances, you would let him completely calm down before continuing to move – but you couldn’t stay where you were. You needed to keep going.

"That was some-" he makes a noise as though he's clearing his throat. "Some quick thinking there. You'd been a great test subject, y'know." He sounds somewhat bashful as he speaks, and you shoot him a curious glance.

"Is that what they did here?" You ask as you tuck him under your arm again, looking down the hall. "Threw people through portals all day to see if they bounced?"

He laughs lightly -- but not for long.

"More or less."

You note the vines and their – oh. They were potatoes? Alright. The vines and potatoes that had fallen through the portal with you. At least you’d gotten at least a few meals out of this whole... adventure? Incredibly traumatizing experience?

You gather them up and stuff them in your backpack, which was full, and continuing on your way. 

This seemed to be... countless rooms on either side of you both. There had to be a million ways to go. 

“Wheatley?” 

“I know, I know- I...I don’t believe I've ever been to this level before...” 

You huff a sigh. 

Well, this is just great. 

“I mean, I can figure it out!" He continues, sounding hopefully and sure of himself. "It can’t be much different than the rest of it, yeah?” 

You sigh, continuing on your way, opening the first door you came across – it was to your left. 

He has a point... and though he seemed to be a bit of an airhead, he would know this place better than you, right? 

This couldn’t take too long. 

Not at all.


End file.
